Image by Images_of_Money The current debate in Washington as to whether or not and under what conditions to raise the debt-ceiling has for the past week dominated global news coverage and the public mind. Absent from the debate and mainstream coverage is a discussion of the debt limit in the
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World Headlines Review: Greek Sovereign Debt Crisis a Sovereignty Crisis
Greek Parliament, Syntagma Athens – by kouk News outlets around the world have focused heavily on the so-called Greek Sovereign debt crisis this week. The proposed solution–an IMF loan package requiring “austerity measures” and a fire-sale of public assets–has sparked massive unrest in the capital, where people from all walks
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Tahrir Square, June 28 Post-Script
Yesterday’s clashes in Tahrir square were covered here at WHR as breaking news. A more complete picture of the context and extent of the situation has emerged. As mentioned in the previous report, the protest began in Cairo as a peaceful demonstration and public mourning by the families of those
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Tahrir Square: Tantawi picks up where Mubarak left off
Cairo’s Tahrir square is once again tonight the scene of ordinary people making extraordinary efforts to free themselves from the militarist rentier regime still in power since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in February. Earlier today in Tahrir began a protest by families of “martyrs,” which in this case refers
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Egypt Rejects IMF, Revolution Lurches Forward
by Jonathan Rashad Egyptians have evaded a great pitfall in their quest for freedom, democracy and sovereignty in their rejection this week of loan proposals from the IMF. Nations across the world, especially in Africa, have time and again during periods of turmoil been tempted into bailouts and loan deals
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Cameras and Cops from Rochester to South Beach
This week the international media has reported on the development of a rather interesting confluence of incidents concerning police behaviour in the US. Each of these involve initial misconduct by law enforcement officers followed by intimidation and ultimately arrest of witnesses who recorded the police actions legally. Police Film London’s
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Egypt and the Press: Stories and Stories
Coverage of the uprising in Egypt in its second week has become characterised by a number of types of reports, most of which paint colorful pictures, but do little to inform on the situation. There are the political discussions as to the West’s reaction, and how the uprising will unbalance
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Egypt, Tunisia, Thailand… Top 10 destinations for Social Upheaval
A Tide of civil unrest has swept through at least 11 nations in just the past week. Media focus has been on the successes of the “Jasmine Revolution” and developments in Egypt, which is populous, geopolitically significant, and in total upheaval; but nations far and wide are experiencing mass-protests and
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Tunisia’s Deposed Ben Ali Family: Canadian Immigration’s political statement
Yesterday reports appeared in the Canadian press, TV and radio, about the arrival in Montreal of family members of the deposed Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his wife, Leila, nee Trabelsis. The expatriate Tunisian community in Montreal had already been watching the situation closely as unidentified Tunisian
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Basra and Iraq: Oil and Expectations
A strange portrait of the Southern-Iraqi city of Basra is painted in a recent and brief Economist article. Better than Baghdad struggles to find real evidence of improvement of quality of life or opportunity in Basra, which is Iraq’s international oil and shipping hub and home to a large disenfranchised
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Revolution in Tunisia?
Zine el Abidine Ben Ali The President of Tunisia, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, has been driven from office. Following up on a previous article here at World Headlines Review about civil unrest in Tunisia, demonstrations only intensified in the face of the lethal force applied by police and military
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Bangladesh: Dabbling in Dhaka Stock Markets
A classic stock market boom-bust cycle is underway in Bangladesh, inciting riots after the closure of the country’s main markets in Dhaka and Chittagong this week. The picture painted by the charts and reports from Bangladesh make for an abject lesson in how markets fluctuate and are driven by salesmanship
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: China: Fear of its Rise is Fear of Ourselves
A recent Economist article, The dangers of a rising China, leads a 14 page report loosely discussing the dangers posed to the world by China’s eclipsing of the USA’s international economic and military order. The article attempts to draw parallels in the power-balance shift between Britain and Germany which led
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Switzerland: Swiss Franc -ly Under Attack
Separate reports this week in the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuericher Zeitung (NZZ) are highlighting the difficult choices Switzerland, and by extension other nations, are facing in the continued onslaught of effective currency devaluation by US and Eurozone officials. The Greenback and the Euro have fallen significantly against the Franc and
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: British Ethics: A Dark Comedy
North Sea Oil Drilling by crawfish head Yesterday, January 6th 2011, the UK Parliamentary committee appointed to look into whether the government should enact a moratorium on deep-water drilling in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico-BP oil disaster, has ruled out the need for a halt to new projects
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Tunisia and Algeria: North African States of Unrest
Reports of civil unrest and suicidal protests in Algeria and Tunisia these past two weeks are highlighting the precarious conditions under which many people across the world live: on the verge of starvation, hopelessly unemployed and frequently homeless. For decades these two neighboring nations have been considered relatively stable, if
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Panem et Circenses South African Style
USA v Algeria, 2010 World Cup by jasonwhat A recent Sports Illustrated article, World Cup’s Empty Legacy, reports on the state of South Africa’s sports infrastructure several months after this summer’s final. While the 2010 World Cup was as much a success as any other in bringing together people from
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Afghanistan: War, Power and Illusion
Canadian LAVs, Afghanistan, by isafmedia This week, Project Censored has released its annual list of top 25 censored news stories in a volume entitled Censored 2011: The Top Censored Stories of 2009-2010. An astounding article published by The Nation on November 11, 2009; How the US funds the Taliban, resurfaces
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Russia, Violence and Protest: What it is and what it is not
Reports and video footage of violent demonstration and criminality by ultra-nationalist and racist organisations in Russia this week are forming an interesting juxtaposition to recent political protests in the West. If one is interested in what ‘violent thuggery’ actually looks like, witness this week’s outburst of unrest in Moscow: Rampaging
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Riots and Disparity: Rome, London and Toronto
International headlines in the last two weeks have reported a massive amount of social unrest and unsettling news across the developed world, including riots and economic data which on the surface may appear discordant and unrelated, but are united as part of larger political and economic trends. Fees Protest, by
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